A growing body of research indicates that unprocessed saturated fat is not unhealthy. The stance vindicates the high-fat, low carb ketogenic, Paleo and Atkins diets. (Creative Commons)

The war on dietary fat may finally be over, as scientists now concede they were wrong to say saturated fat was unhealthy for the past 40 years.

The admission vindicates the high-fat, low-carb ketogenic, Atkins, and Paleo diets, whose proponents have said all along that eating fat does not make you fat.

The seismic shift in the war against saturated fat kicked off after a provocative 2014 Time cover story, where the magazine said the 40-year demonization of saturated fat as the cause of obesity, diabetes, and heart disease was based on flawed data. (The article is only readable for Time.com subscribers).

“It’s not saturated fat we should worry about,” cardiologist Dr. Rajiv Chowdhury wrote in the Annals of Internal Medicine. “It’s the high-carb or sugary diet that should be the focus of dietary guidelines.”

Dr. Chowdhury joins a growing list of medical experts to dispel the myth that saturated fat is the cause of obesity, diabetes, high cholesterol, and cardiovascular disease.

A high-carb diet — particularly one high in sugar and refined carbs — is to blame for these illnesses, he said.

Chowdhury and his colleagues drew their conclusions after reviewing data from 72 published studies of more than 600,000 people from 18 countries. Chowdhury is not the only heart doctor who holds this opinion.

Dr. Westman, director of the Duke University Obesity Clinic, is pleased that mainstream media is finally debunking the myth that eating fat makes you fat and sick. To the contrary, he said: Eating fat makes you skinny and healthy.

“I tell my patients not to fear the fat,” said Dr. Westman, co-author of Keto Clarity. “Eat lots of fat. Fat makes you feel full. There’s no problem with fat. In fact, saturated fat — the fat that we’ve been taught not to eat — raises your good cholesterol best of all the foods you can eat.”